Govt announces new media policy for DAVP, renewal of TV channels

The Union government has announced new policy initiatives for different sectors of media on Wednesday.

While addressing 28th SIMCON, I&B minister M Venkaiah Naidu announced new initiatives that promote cinema as a medium of communication through various film festivals, new print media policy to increase transparency and accountability in release of government advertisements through DAVP and a simplified annual renewal process of existing TV channels.

Under the new Print Media Advertisement Policy for DAVP, the government introduced a new policy of circulation verification procedure for empanelment of newspapers and journals with DAVP. This is also for transparency and accountability in issuing government advertisements in print media and weeding out irregular newspapers.

A three-member committee has been formed to address the issues related to Content Regulation in Government Advertising constituted as per the directions of the Supreme Court. The committee is headed by the former ECI BB Tandon.

To streamline business practices in line with the contemporary trends prevailing in publications industry and to promote online readership by pricing the digital version of the publication at 75 per cent the price of printed version, the new Business Policy for Publication Division was announced. It acknowledges the growing prospects of e-commerce and promotes sale of e- books of the division through online platforms.

For the broadcasters who have been given the permission for uplinking or downlinking, the government announced that they can continue their operations by simply paying the annual permission fee up to 60 days before the due date, which by itself will be treated as permission for continuation of the channel for a further period of one year. A total of 170 channels have been given licences from Jun 2014 till Dec 2016. Of these, 25 licences were given to news channels and 145 to non-news channels.

I&B ministry mentioned that for the FM Phase 3, auctions for the first and second batches have been completed, which has increased the reach of FM radio all over India.

The ministry will also be utilising the platform of Film Festivals to promote India’s endeavour of being a ‘Filming Destination’.